Against Mitterand-mania

Par
Editorial by Alexis Brézet

Mis à jour
le 15/10/2007 à 23:59

Publié
le 09/01/2006 à 06:00

De mortuis aut bonum, aut nihil. Never speak ill of the dead. We know the rule, but the tidal wave of idolatry expressed for François Mitterand over the last few days demands a response. It's impossib...

De mortuis aut bonum, aut nihil. Never speak ill of the dead. We know the rule, but the tidal wave of idolatry expressed for François Mitterand over the last few days demands a response. It's impossible to escape. Everywhere you look there are processions of devoted vestals and acolytes. Is Mitterand really more popular than De Gaulle? It's hard to believe. Is the ex-president to be transferred to the Pantheon? Surely Paris's Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, is merely being humorous. But no! The Left, who Mitterand seduced and abandoned, harbours hopes of bathing in his reflected glory. The Right, which he duped, is intent on persuading itself of its superior motives. Ten years after his death, the Great Bamboozler continues to spread confusion. For, all things considered, what, other than to further the European project, did Mitterand achieve in his fourteen years as president? The abolition of the death penalty and decentralisation. Mitterand's state architecture which, other than the Pyramid at the Louvre and the Grande Arche de la Défence to the west of Paris, is decidedly mediocre. What else? Politically, we are told, Mitterand was responsible for ensuring that power alternated between the Left and the Right. How marvellous! But his real forte was winning elections and building a personal nest within the state's institutions. He is credited with killing the French Communist party; but communism has everywhere long been defunct. France, however, paid a very high price for its demise: the dogma of the Union of the Left had the effect of trussing democratic socialism up in a straightjacket of self-justification and denial from which it has not yet entirely escaped. Consequently, at a time when Reagan, Thatcher and Kohl were busy preparing their respective countries for the future, France was enduring an incredible series of economic blunders, for which the bill is still being paid. Retirement at 60? Twenty years later, the Ministry of Finance estimates that the measure has cost France 200 billion euros. Mass recruitment in the civil service? Another 100 billion euros. And not content with his forebear's works, Lionel Jospin, ever the loyal disciple, concocted the 35 hour working week at a cost of a further 100 billion euros. Future generations will not look back on François Mitterand with a glint of gratitude in their eyes. In the social sphere, Mitterand's achievements include the mass regularisation of the status of people living in France illegally as a way of papering over the cracks of uncontrolled immigration; the simultaneous emergence of the Front National and an anti-racist reaction to it instrumentalised to political ends; and endless paeans to multiculturalism that have led to the surfeit of communitarian demands that we observe today. From a certain point of view, the crisis of France's riot-torn suburbs is a distant legacy of François Mitterand. And what is to be said about his influence on the public's attitude to the political class? Scandals, corruption and lies became part and parcel of government. It is surely clear to one and all that the seeds of the much talked of divide between the people and their representatives were sown in last years of Mitterand's reign. It cannot be denied that Mitterand, who loved trees, books, women and, above all, politics, was a fascinating individual. But looking back over his career, outstanding virtue and lasting achievements are strangely lacking. To go down in history as great man it is not enough merely to resemble a character in a novel.